Kickstarter

This first Kickstarter has two products: the SmartMachine and SmartModule. These are two IoT boards that contain an ARM Cortex M3 and pushing out a number of GPIOs. The SmartMachine can be powered from coin cell battery or USB and the Module from any 3V supply. They all have inbuilt slowpan, (6LowPAN), communication.

There’s also an SM gateway which is identical to the SmartMachine, but contains an ethernet port instead.

Do you want a 5 micrometer full colour 3D printer? Well, there’s one on Kickstarter which claims to be able to do just that. The campaign is a little scant on information, but it claims to be able to blend 3 different colour filaments to make any colour you want. Will be interesting to see how this one goes.

Another one with scant information, but is an interesting idea. A glass blowing lathe! We’re starting to see a lot more unusual desktop fabrication machines now. This one looks a little rough and even the creator mentions that it’s not perfect.

Unusually this one seems to be doing well. It’s a educational Pi based kit that will monitor a small garden bed. It’ll monitor things like air quality, temperature, humidity, sunlight, infrared and UV index. It also has an OLED, buttons and knobs to be used as a simple user interface.

All the data can be sent back to the creator’s website that you can view.

A simple idea that requires no soldering. This will allow your Pi Zero to be connected directly to a PC USB port without cables. It uses pogo pins to connect to the USB port of the Zero and provides a standard USB plug.

Plezmo is yet another building block IoT style product. They have a fully functional iOS app that allows you to code up in Blockly style and program over the air.

There are a number of elements with onboard LiPo battery providing the usual light, motion, proximity and gesture sensors as well as motor controllers, displays, buttons, buzzers and adaptors allowing you to connect to Lego Mindstorms, Wedo and SPhero.

And a bag tracker that claims will give you the GPS location of your lost bag. Too bad that it relies on GSM that isn’t available in all countries, not to mention the poor GPS signals when it’s in a building or plane and then there’s the battery life.

CrowdSupply

For example the FX development board is an audio board with prototyping area. It’s aim is to help you build up audio effects pedals and contains everything you’d need to do that. The creator has a bunch of examples showing you what it can do all on the fxdevboard website.

From there you can then go and manufacture your PCB and create a permanent pedal.

Others

Over at Pimoroni they have been causing waves. They have taken a standard press-fit connector header and turned it into a DIY no-solder kit.

OK. Interesting concept. Normally these press-fit connectors are pushed in by machine. However, the kit comes with a jig allowing you to line things up and then all you need is a hammer and some muscle.

My take on it? Just go and buy a soldering iron and learn how to solder.

The Espruino Puck is a basically an expensive switch… Well… it is a switch and it is expensive, but it also contains an nRF52832 based SoC, NFC, capacitive touch, magnetometer, IR transmitter, thermometer, light and battery sensors.

You can program it using Javascript and get it to do a bucket load of things. AdaFruit currently have a page but no stock, so just get it from Tindie!

And a chip to keep your eye on. This STM SoC contains an STM32 MCU as well as motor driver. Runs from 8 to 45 volts, with inbuilt 3.3 buck converter, 12v regulator, and all the usual STM32 stuff you get elsewhere.

This 12v brushless motor driver is fairly basic, but is also fairly cheap allowing you to control an 18 volt motor at up to 3A. The board can only dissipate 30 watts, so there’s something odd with their calculations there.

If you are having trouble sleeping have you tried to count coulombs? Or if you’re not, you can get get one of these which will not only do that for you but test your LiPos, LifePOs, and lead acid batteries.

This first Weeky Roundup of the year and we're already seeing lots of new goodies from SBCs, to WiFi modules, but really a tonne of new SBCs. Continue reading Weekly Roundup #62: New Maker Products // News→

This week's Weekly Roundup, which hasn't really been weekly for the past month, we're seeing a fair amount of retro kit, FPGAs and SBCs. Basically a whole lot of stuff that is really cool that you didn't know you needed. Continue reading Weekly Roundup #61: New Maker Products // News→

This week's Weekly Roundup is actually a little short, but we have FPGAs, SBCs and other cool things I've found in my travels on the interwebs. Continue reading Weekly Roundup #60: New Maker Products // News→

An SBC that's not really an SBC. Based on the NationalChip GX6605S, it runs a tiny Linux with a very small component count, but is it too cool to be usable? Continue reading The C-Sky SBC: Pi in the Sky? // Review→

In this review I take a look at one of the newer members of the Khadas family; The Khadas Edge and Khadas Captain. This board has some pretty interesting power management but, unfortunately, I saw the return of the magic smoke genie. Continue reading The Khadas Edge: A new captain

The LattePanda Alpha SBC is a bit of a beast not only in horse power, but in price. In this video I look at benchmarks on Windows, Linux and OSX and give my perspective on why LattePanda made a big mistake. Continue reading LattePanda Alpha: The big mistake? // Review→

This quick project shows you how to build an MQTT controlled RGB LED matrix panel in under 30 minutes, but I reckon it should take you a lot less. Continue reading Build an MQTT based RGB LED panel! // Project→

Do you want to be able to send an SMS over 20kms without using a mobile phone network? Here's one small project you can knock up in less than a day allowing you to send an SMS over LoRa. Continue reading SMS over LoRa: Long distance SMS without 4G //

If you're a fan of GoLang then your options are limited in the embedded world. So, here's a couple of options for you with a working bare metal example for an STM32 MCU written entirely in Go. Continue reading Running GoLang on an STM32 MCU. A quick tutorial.→

This is the second part of my video on building a simple PCB using EasyEDA. This time we'll be taking a look at how to use a solder stencil, placing SMD components, soldering using kitchen equipment and how to fix up your mistakes. Continue reading Make a PCB from scratch

A follow-up to my video tutorial: "Program an Atmel SAM without an IDE". I've created a Docker container on GitHub with a complete ASF build chain. Ready to go. Go for it! Continue reading Atmel Software Framework and build chain in a Docker container→

A bit of a different mailbag this week. Containing a lot of bits and pieces for upcoming projects and other odds and ends. Continue reading MickMake Mail #30: Gakken, JLCPCB, wicking and skulls // News→